The Argument

Just to give the argument in its purist form so that other people can understand the train of thought that is being suggested, (instead of trying to give an answer to every possible objection that would satisfy every single interpretation, which would get tedious and away from the larger point) imagine I wave a magic wand and conjure up an emperor of the planet.  This emperor has an unlimited bank account and has all of the correct connections with all of the correct people.  Lets just say this emperor then decided they were going to spend 10 trillion dollars on the largest Manhattan style project ever seen where thousands of the best scientists and engineers humanity has to offer deliberately went about automating as many jobs as technically possible.  There would be such a massive systemic crisis that it would make the the Great Depression look like it was a sick joke.  This project would cause such a fundamental paradigm shift in the values society and individuals operate with that there would need to be a complete re-evaluation of how people relate to the world.  With this in mind, return to our non-magic wand world and look around, look at what COULD be done without magical emperors popping out of nowhere and look at how people currently relate to their world.

This argument is an addition to or might be the pre-requisite of the "An Ideal Form" post.  Not sure what would be the best order for these arguments, (its just that they go together) but I feel are best thought of in separate posts.

http://valuesofadevilsadvocate.blogspot.com/2013/09/an-ideal-form.html

An Ideal Form

Imagine a stratified payment system to attend college where pay goes up based on what you've successfully mastered depending on what that might be, for example... computer science and physics will probably be more valuable in the grand scheme of things than say basket weaving. If there was a DIRECT INCENTIVE to learn, there would be a much more educated population, which is what drives art and promotes true infinite growth, instead of the thing we have right now.

My devils advocate pops up and says, "That's great Jacob, but how are we going to pay for all of this?  Until you figure out how that's going to work, its nothing but a pipe dream."

That's certainly a good objection to make, however when you take an HONEST look at how finances work, it might not be such a huge issue, however I'll take your challenge and give you all of the capital you might need.  If the government is the only real player that might be able to initiate a national minimum wage for students to learn (which I do not believe is true, but unfortunately the probability of the larger private players doing this is sufficiently less) then it should be the government who automates, taking the revenue that is gained by the automated services, and put it towards creating real value in the world which would be educating people to where they could ACTUALLY contribute (occupations like technical, artistic, social, management, etc).

My devils advocate pops up again and says, "That's great Jacob, but I'm older and done with school, why would I care that students get this deal when I didn't and when this wont effect me at all?"

It's not true that you wouldn't be effected by supporting this effort.  Instead of paying people to work at occupations that don't need to exist anymore, even if you yourself have an occupation that can't be automated yet, discounting those wasted resources is an oversight.  Businesses would see a completely new standard, the growth and innovation would be 'unimaginable' right now. Say you're someone that doesn't own a business, but still has a white collar job and you're relatively comfortable with how life treats you and you're hesitant to shake things up knowing how hard it was to get where you are.  It's certainly something that is understandable, however we're in a loop as a society right now where things that were vital to our survival in the past that demanded a significant portion of the population no longer require the same concentrated effort, but still have their hold on society.  If we were able to break out of this loop, some of the larger dreams people once worked towards, like SPACE, might not be so foolish to dream about again.  The assertion is that those dreams will never come about without eventually breaking out of this loop, so why not sooner rather than later.

My devils advocate pops up once more and says, "That's great Jacob, however I'm retired and getting into my 60's, 70's and 80's, why would I care about your little scheme?"

Medical Science.  The life prolonging technologies and medicines we've come up with, (which is why we don't die at the ripe old age of 30 anymore) will certainly see significant growth with this scenario since those sorts of applications and occupations would still be in very high demand and provide their incentives for people to contribute to, which is something someone who is older would care about even if they weren't interested in living past 100 (which you probably could do if you wanted to try).  These sorts of advances would still make the last years of someone's life as comfortable as they 'could be' as opposed to what they would be if our human resources were wasted.

An Obvious Solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict

Everybody and their mother knows that this situation is about religion... Each side believes that their faith promises them the same plot of land to worship their god, that's fine.  I personally do not hold any of the faiths involved in this situation so (from my point of view) my opinion is as good of an outside perspective as there will ever be (there could always be smarter people who weigh in on the situation who also do not hold any of the beliefs in question, but my point is that they would be as detached as me).  It's a very interesting situation to be in, given the nature of the religious motivations on all sides and trying to find a solution to the problem as well as analysis of other solutions or efforts proposed...  The "left wing" perspective has basically been to try to convince, religiously motivated efforts to strengthen Israel, to basically give up on their efforts to fulfill the narrative of their doctrines, "Free Palestine".  The "right wing" perspective which has been dominated by Christian values has basically been to support Israel militarily and financially.  I believe that my perspective is a third way in between these two patterns.

The great thing about this situation is that one set of beliefs is falsifiable.  Christians believe that once the Jewish temple is rebuilt, Jesus will return, while Jews themselves believe that once the temple is rebuilt, the true Messiah will reveal himself and Muslims obviously do not think anything will happen otherwise they would have allowed the temple to be rebuilt a while ago.  Also, (If I am not mistaken) there are a few Muslim buildings that would need to be removed before the temple is rebuilt due to the location for the prophecy to be true.

Here's the idea.

Since one set of beliefs is falsifiable (as in it could be shown to be wrong if it was wrong) it could be tested and if it's wrong (which Muslims would be sure of, according to their faith) you tear down the temple and rebuild whatever Muslim holy structure was there before and we can all finally put this behind us.  Since it would be such a huge thing to cope with for any religious organization, to just remove some of your most important iconic structures just so that this group of delusional fanatics (from the perspective of a Muslim who has rejected Christianity or Judaism as the correct way to interpret the world) can test their theories, I would suggest the global Jewish and Christian communities work together to figure out what it would be worth in dollars to test and see if their prophecy would come true.  500 billion dollars?  A trillion dollars?  Figure out what you would be willing to sell and what you would be willing to donate to the effort of compensating the Muslim world, organized probably through the Catholic Church since they are suppose to be the largest religious institution, and make a contractual offer to Palestine.  Something along the lines of taking as much care as possible to remove whatever Muslim artifacts and structures with the best that modern technology has to offer (which would make the whole removal process near perfection) so that if the test proves to be false you could rebuild with the exact same materials and artifacts that were there.  Having a definite amount of time for the experiment to be over, maybe after a month of the temple being rebuilt and no Messiah shows up it could be said that the prophecy was false, just to be sure that it wouldn't be this open ended affair where Muslims loose their land.  There would need to be a formal process on the part of the Catholic church as well to provide all of the specific parameters (before the test begins) that would need to be filled for the prophecy to be true so that there couldn't be any back tracking of the sort that the experiment was insufficient.

I can anticipate that there might be people who are going to claim that even if there was an offer of an incredible amount like 5 trillion dollars, (half before removing Muslim artifacts, the other half after the temple was built) that Muslims are just so irrational or evil that they couldn't be reasoned with.  Even though my own knowledge on this insanely complex topic of the middle east and these three religions is limited compared to scholars who have dedicated their whole professional lives to the subject, its still easy to spot when certain sides demonize their enemies instead of looking at them as human beings.  I do know that there are Muslim teachings that promote peace and empathy for their fellow man, and surely there are some Muslims who would agree that helping over 2 billion people get over their obsession with this temple being built and the return (or the arrival) of the Messiah would be one of the all time acts of love for the human species as a whole and would seriously consider taking the financial compensation for their temporary sacrifice as well as the prospects of living in a world with more peace.

Its certainly a long shot (not as far off as I think some people may think it is), however I feel the two positions that I generalized in the beginning "the left" vs "the right" are both failing strategies for reasons that I haven't fully elaborated on here, and hope people consider my suggestion for a peaceful way to a resolution. 

The Definition of the word Work

I've noticed that there is a huge amount of confusion around this word and I hope it could be productive if I finally work on explaining what the word means to me and how I interpret the word is meant by other people because of the cultural baggage which seems to be incoherent.  

To me, the word 'work' is synonymous to the phrase 'productive contribution'.

The way I interpret other people's intention with the word work is 'any activity that produces income'.  

I'll start with the similarities between our two interpretations before I go into how one interpretation has taken the wrong turn (in my opinion).  Often times, when someone contributes some kind of effort to a particular cause or objective, they are rewarded with money on a contractual basis.  For example, when someone is hired on by Google to manage one of their many online services such as the Google News Stream, that person is compensated for their efforts, this person probably wouldn't have been hired by Google if they weren't productively contributing to the objectives set forth by Google News, which is to post current events to their stream so that people who use Google services can be more informed about their world.  Now lets say there was a software program that could do this function without the need of a human to spend their time finding stories and going through the process of screening nonsense from the legit, relevant from the irrelevant, sourced reports from un-sourced ones, it could then be said that this human isn't actually 'contributing' to Google News since the program could have done it EVEN IF Google still pays this person to do all of those things that the software program would have been doing.  With my definition, this person isn't actually working even though they are making money, what they are doing is a kind of circus trick to make it appear as though what they are doing is actually contributing, when in fact what they are doing is wasting time.  

I'm not entirely sure that other people truly understand what they mean when they use the word work.  It seems more likely to me that other people have been conditioned into a certain kind of expectation of what it means to work by their decades of doing what it took to make money, without fully examining the properties of the word and what was possible both technologically/ socially.  Also, it seems that older people now, unconsciously maybe??? expect everyone else to live the sort of life they had regardless if what they would be doing would actually contribute to society.  Having someone picking food out in the fields on some farm isn't actually contributing even if someone would be willing to pay you to do it, however, having people work on the machinery that would pick the food for you, as in the computers that control these machines or the designs and prototypes of new machines, or even the repairs and maintenance of the old ones (though with a machine that constantly breaks down or needs maintenance is an opportunity for someone to design a new one that needs less attention) would be something that would be contributing, otherwise you would be as productive as someone who learned how to juggle bowling pins wearing clown makeup for money on a street corner.

I think I'll try and end with an extreme question that could help with clarifying ones own thinking about the principles of what it means to 'work'.  If I stand in front of a camera for half an hour a day and someone takes pictures of me, paying me a thousand dollars a minute, would that qualify as work?  30 grand a day because someone thinks that my image is worth that trade in value?  Or is that something else?  Something besides what we all mean when we use the word 'work'?  With my definition of the word work and with the objective of increasing value in the world and with the level of education / capability of the population as a whole having a direct correlation to the overall value in society, it makes sense that when people are learning, people are working.

The Alien Hypothesis

[Note:  As always my first post should be read if you have yet to take a look.]

Aliens would come talk to humans if they were here watching us, it might take a couple decades for people to fully comprehend any suggestions they may have as to what would be the best way to progress as a population, but it would be worth it as long as there was a committed effort to collaborate with humanity and not control it, otherwise it would be a nightmare and probably cause a detraction not progress.  If there was this massively superior alien race with superior computational capabilities and cognitive analysis, they would be able to calculate every single probable progression humans could take to move towards a more advanced civilization from their current state, present these options to humans while making their formal public notice and explain the processes that would be taking place if humans decided to take the actions of a particular direction.  Humans would be much more willing to take the advice of these massively superior beings without the need to be coerced or controlled and still be able to feel as though we were maintaining our autonomy or at least I would be much more willing as opposed to the theory that aliens are here secretly manipulating individuals one by one without letting their presence known to the public at large.  Maybe every human on the planet wouldn't react in such a way, but why would EVERYBODY have to be in a perfectly healthy and rational state of mind in order to begin the process?  Sure you could say that in the abstract, superior alien races could 'control' massively unintelligent humans through manipulating basic cognitive biases or other processes through framing the explanations of their analysis so that 'other' alternatives would not be considered that might be more in humanities better interest, however as long as no physical manipulations were to occur and only verbal, written or other visual communications were to be restricted to (which would be the most efficient way to establish a positive relationship and fastest path to collaboration and integration), why not?  Humanity could decide to take a few decades thinking it over for ourselves if we needed to, perhaps some individuals moving faster than others... if this superior alien species exist and are currently watching humanity, at what point would they decide humanity deserves to know the truth since that is the inevitable outcome even if it would take another thousand years, why not just skip a few steps and do it now?  The incentives for an alien species to help humanity progress would be obvious as far as being able to utilize the innovative creativity humans provide, especially after the increased functioning which both species can benefit from, as well as the prospect of fostering a new and open interstellar relationship for its own sake.  Any sort sort of material incentives would be irrelevant given the technological breakthroughs it would take to travel across the massive distances in space in any sort of reasonable amount of time and survive. 

My Devils Advocate pops up and says that perhaps this alien civilization gains some sort of entertainment value by watching this pathetically inferior primate species run around and act as if they know something, sort of like a reality TV show where the audience has been encouraged to laugh at the expense of the contestants.  

This may be true, however it does not give a reasonable explanation as to why this alien race would not have made contact by now.  While running this sort of thought experiment in my head of what humanities reaction would be like if an alien species were to make contact, as in they were to 'prove' that they were superior to the human race both intellectually and technologically through some sort of exhibition of the toys they let child aliens play with in a 'public setting' that could be independently verified and scrutinized, I easily imagine that large portions of the population would decide that, wait a minute, I want off of this roller coaster ride just as the Amish do today, they decided they weren't ready to progress and humanity allowed them to stay in the time they were comfortable with, the same sort of situation would happen in this scenario.  

I do want to make sure however that there is no confusion as far as what it would mean to have pockets of humanity holding out from this kind of progress.  The Amish are not allowed to fence off their population from the rest of the world, they are not allowed to make it so their offspring are never told or shown how the rest of humanity lives and they aren't allowed to prevent their members from having the option to move out of that designated area to the 'modern world'.  In fact, moving from the Amish world to the modern world with all of the technological advances does not require an enormous amount of effort, its perhaps a few hours ride on the donkey pulled carriage.  I have not personally looked into the matter, but I'm willing to bet there are programs to help integrate Amish refugees into the modern world, the same sort of thing would take place in my alien scenario.  The hardest part for an Amish person to make the jump is to get over the mental conditioning they've gone through in their regressed culture, its not like getting to the nearest modern city is like jumping off a cliff.  These pockets who decide to 'get off the ride' so to speak, would still provide the potential entertainment value for this hypothetical alien reality TV if that was what these aliens cared about while still allowing the rest of humanity who wanted to continue forward, continue forward.  Humans aren't exactly the most variable in the galaxy, there are probably a couple hundred thousand variations (if I were to be very generous) as far as personality and emotional reactions given certain stimulants in the external environment which would be more than covered by these pockets for their reality TV show given the billions who currently live on earth.

So back to my imaginary world where aliens have decided to openly and publicly contact humanity, there would be zones that individual pockets of humanity could retreat to while the rest of humanity decides to move ahead with the guidance of the superior analysis.  This might not be instantaneous for everybody, but it would be an honest and open process of reflection and consideration of what people wanted to do, perhaps some pockets of humanity would move faster than others, showing what it would be like for everybody else, but it would be open and non-secretive.  

My Devils Advocate pops up again and says, perhaps the aliens figured that the best way for humans to progress would be to present themselves secretly to governments and allow governments to make the decisions for their populations as a whole as far as which direction to evolve.   

I've considered this argument and the idea doesn't seem to be in alignment with observed reality, as well as the logical implications of what it would mean to sacrifice the open dialog.  If aliens presented themselves to the governments of earth, and governments are secretly hiding this from their populations in order to slowly prime people for the truth, why is it that we are still fighting wars with one another?  Why would aliens believe governments were trustworthy with this sort of knowledge and power given the past few thousand years of almost nonstop war?  Why is it that we can't seem to work together to get some of the most basic problems under control given the assumption that governments secretly know that aliens are watching humanity such as making sure everybody has enough food to eat which currently, out of the 7 billion humans on the planet, 1 billion are starving?  Why would aliens who wished to help humanity not have realized that the fastest and most efficient means to global unity and cooperation between humans would be a collective understanding that we were not alone in the universe?  There are quiet a few obvious questions that I'm not going to bother writing which don't seem to have coherent answers either which makes this kind of conspiracy theory ridiculous.  Also the idea that aliens would give governments this information with the intention of creating chaos is also ridiculous since there would be much more efficient methods to induce mayhem given the superiority of an aliens technology and cognitive abilities, in other words the world would look a lot different if that was their goal.

This reasoning makes it hard for me to believe that aliens have visited earth and have decided to keep their presence unknown, which makes me confident that all of this effort put into alien conspiracy theories is not that well thought out, I could be wrong though and will be adding more to my post when the thoughts come up.  Feedback is always welcome.

Philosophy of the 'Economic Vegan'

[Note: This is only what I've been working on so far and is meant to be an overview for other vegans or those interested in the topic to critic, correct or build on. There will probably be errors since no one other than myself  has gone over the argument. This argument is not the go-vegan conversion argument for non-vegans, making an argument trying to convince you to be Vegan, and arguing for what would be the best strategy to operate with as someone who is already a vegan are two separate things and should not be confused.  As always if you have yet to read the first blog post, please do so before continuing http://valuesofadevilsadvocate.blogspot.com/2013/07/facts-and-values-1-3a.html ]

Mainstream veganism attempts to remove all animal exploitation from their daily use/consumption as possible, whereas an 'Economic Vegan' is less interested in striving for purity since true purity is impossible while choosing to live in modern society, such as the animal bones used to build the roads that outline our cities and countless other examples that simply cannot be avoided if one does not wish to live in the woods picking nuts and berries and growing their own food.  Instead, the focus is placed on the VERY SPECIFIC GOAL of reducing the demand for products that 'directly contribute' to the overwhelming profit incentives that leads to the unnecessary enslavement, torture, and murder of animals.  Exceptions unfortunately exist, such as for bees that pollinate the food supply, without which our current agricultural system could not function so their enslavement is considered 'necessary' for the time being, perhaps in the future when agriculture no longer needs bee's in order to meet our populations demand, boycotting food that was grown with the assistance of bee pollination could be legitimate. However to call the life of a honey bee in our system ‘enslavement’ is hard to justify when compared to the life of a dairy cow, if humans were not omnivores and were instead carnivores, then the enslavement of cows for the purposes of agriculture would be considered 'necessary' and so would not be an ethical dilemma, however since humans are omnivores there isn't a necessity which is why there is a ethical dilemma when consuming cows.  Normal mainstream veganism achieves the goals of reducing the demand for products that 'directly contribute' to the overwhelming profit incentives of animal agriculture by default, but as I will argue below, is taken to purity seeking levels that go beyond this main focus of economics, which I believe is partially causing the enormous amount of anxiety and hesitation to try a lifestyle shift the general public seems to have, possibly due to the perceived standards that may seem too extremist, which wouldn't be necessary for the goals of Animal Activism. Obviously its important to support our vegan retailers that advertise as being a vegan option and should always be deferred to when possible in order to support our vegan base, in case this isn't self-evident.

[Note: It should be mentioned upfront that I believe there are situations where Economic Vegans consume what I will later define as the primary animal resources like meat.  An example of a situation would be when that individual doesn't have the money to purchase a vegan option and doesn't know where to find or access to free vegan options and is dependent on the offerings/ choices of non-vegans.  In this scenario, it would still be ideal for the vegan to try to defer to whatever they could to minimize as much demand as possible, however the realities of nutritional and energy requirements will cause some compromises.  Another example would be when disgusting psychopathic people who have an extraordinary amount of influence on your diet and who like to fuck with you because you are a vegan, such as when you are in a particularly non-caring/non-reflective family or if you live in a totalized environment like prison or the military, having to survive in a non-vegan world is not your fault.]

The fundamental thought with this way of thinking is being able to make a distinction between the different resources available for purchase since the incentives they provide a producer to continue the cycle are not equally distributed, which is primarily assessed through profit.  For example, eggs and beef return a level of profit sufficiently different to cow bones, pig eyes or whatever "secondary resources" that would be categorized differently, not through the spiritual lens of an Animal Activist, but by the capitalist responsible for providing those products.  Many secondary resources would have been discarded to landfills if there hadn't been a use found in the wide variety of products that only require a few trace elements to produce the desired function.  "Primary Resources" are those resources such as meat, milk, and eggs which are responsible for well over the majority of profits. 

So the assumption goes, if primary resources were no longer providing their incentives to producers, there wouldn't be enough of a profitable return from the remaining secondary resources to motivate producers to continue the cycle, as in there would be sufficient motivation to halt animal agriculture altogether due to the financial costs of housing, feeding, transporting, processing, disposing of excess parts, as well as what is sacrificed as far as what all that land, equipment and other resources could be put towards including their resale value, would outstrip the profits they currently receive.  If secondary resources were still attractive enough for producers to come up with non-animal alternatives after animal agriculture disappeared, then the profits would have to justify the research and development of those alternatives if they don't already exist but cannot compete economically with a resource that would have been discarded in a landfill anyways, otherwise if there wasn't enough of an incentive, secondary resources would disappear without a direct boycott.  

If a product would produce enough of a monetary return to justify all of those expenses (housing, feeding, transporting, etc.) then it would be classified under the 'Primary Animal Resources' categories. A technique that is simple enough to understand for yourself of how a resource should be classified is to run a thought experiment where you wave a magic wand causing the entire world to develop a repulsion to whatever you have already classified as a primary resource (I chose to start with meat, milk and eggs) and see if the the product in question would still justify the costs to produce the product from animals. An example would be leather clothing; when I run that simulation in my mind, I come up with the answer, Yes, I believe in a world where humanity has a magically induced repulsion to meat, milk and eggs, cows would still be enslaved and slaughtered for their skin for humans to wear due to the level of demand/profits that currently exists (my answer could be different from yours and perhaps I am wrong, if I am please tell me why you think so). Next you update your list of primary resources: meat, milk, eggs, leather... and then run the simulation again for another product in question, such as going to the circus that has animals perform tricks for humans... Then repeat the process, etc. 

Life as an Economic Vegan is about a constant process of analysis and reflection of the specific choices in life with updates to new information, though as certain brand products are found to meet the requirements, less and less is needed to process for the daily routines in life. I know we live in an omnivore world and so I want to be sure that anybody who is reading this and is not vegan knows that I did not intend to insult them, though they might have taken offense anyways... perhaps assuming that I look at them as if they were immoral sociopaths or something like that, which couldn't be further from the truth. One of the advantages of being introduced to multiple highly intelligent philosophers who each hold conflicting opinions on the same subject is that you can understand what its like to hold someone in a very high regard, knowing that they have a lot of value to contribute to your understanding of the world and yet be able to disagree on very specific data points while not rejecting the whole of their argument or the value they offer in other domains. I would also like to say that for the first 20 years of my life, I never felt the need to examine my dietary choices even though I knew of the existence of Vegans, however once I was exposed to the arguments presented to me by a Vegan Philosopher I felt compelled to make the switch.  A small hope in the back of my mind for any non-vegans exposed to this text would be for those of you who are feeling bold, to have been inspired to go explore some more and to know that if you decide to not go vegan, but gave it an honest consideration, I STILL LOVE YOU. I hope to get feedback on these ideas and look for my upcoming post on the Animal Rights vs Animal Welfare debate.  Thank you for your time.

The Obvious Solution to the Abortion Problem

There's an anti-abortion moving truck that stalks our local planned parenthood and sometimes can be seen driving around town, the side of the truck says: "If your choice helps abort babies, what happens to your soul?".

The current thinking from the conservative mindset is that we need to get women to be more responsible with the choices they make as far as who and how often to have sex. They're picking on the wrong gender! Let's say we enter my magic wand world for a second and there was a program where, at a certain age, every male was given a sperm storage unit (or a voucher for a unit) with a national sperm bank network. One deposit would contain enough heads for close to over ten thousand artificial insemination's which would securely preserve their DNA, then males would get their vasectomy. Whenever there was a point at which couples decide they were ready to raise children, they make their visit to the local sperm bank and get their artificial insemination. I don't believe this kind of program would need to be a legislated, top down mandatory sort of thing either. It could be an opt-in program where men were given the choice and still have massive compliance, especially since (at least according to my anecdotal experiences) most young men do not have the desire to father children until some time in their 30's and 40's when they've built their nest egg and have financial security, though this could vary based on culture and so there could be incentives implemented without having to use coercion. Individuals could have multiple vouchers in order to maintain redundancy so as to protect their freedom of choice later on in life, as well as the private sector having opportunities for nonprofit watchdog groups with ethics boards to evaluate when and why a request was rejected and what would constitute a case of naive or irresponsible people intending to procreate.  There would probably be variations between state borders as far as the laws concerning this type of thing so having private groups involved that could operate in all jurisdictions would probably be the best way to go.

The problem (which is actually 'unwanted pregnancies', not abortion) would drop off a cliff, but of course, could raise several new problems such as sperm banks having unlimited power over the flow and shape of society, perhaps making judgments about individual couples not being ready to conceive and withholding a persons DNA unjustifiably... This would be a problem that might not always be the horrible dystopian future I can see people imagining it to be, people can easily be confused about whether or not they have the knowledge and the resources that it would take to raise a healthy, happy baby and so would benefit from a consultation and perhaps a few college courses before jumping into something that they aren't ready for, reminding them its not just their life, its also the child's life.  

My Devil's Advocate pops up right now saying that there could easily be situations where perfectly eligible couples have their rights and property abused by these authorities, what would be the correct move to safeguard against this?

Redundancy and privatization. The amazing thing about being able to father thousands of kids in one shot (with the help of science) is that making deposits at multiple banks, both public banks and private ones, with the government and private religious/ secular organizations financing to satisfy that both the religious concerns for respecting life as well as ensuring the psycho-social-developmental health and security of society makes this much more practical. If you prevent conception, you don't have a life that needs to be terminated in the first place so focusing on the morning after pill is the wrong approach/ wrong gender, focusing your activism on males instead of females makes much more sense given the religious/scientific factors involved.  

My Devil's Advocate pops up again and says perhaps the religious motivations are secondary to other motivations such as personal responsibility. 

Hoping for a revolution in personal willpower and responsibility is an understandable aspiration, however when the consequences of a failure of this revolution involves the lives of innocent children, I would say perhaps trying to shift the focus of your activism to another domain would be best given the obvious solution to the current problem.  

The only other rebuttal I might be given to why this idea would be unattractive would be the economic argument. There is a current dogma in economics right now that says the more people you have, the more economic demand/growth your society will have overall... In 2005, according to the UN, over half of the world's population lived on less than 2 dollars a day while 30,000 children died each day due to hunger related causes... let's start talking about demand being reduced given less pregnancies once we have hit the true capacity of our current population (Note: I was unable to find a link to the current UN estimates but I found a few independent sources that said the current number is 16,000 children under the age of 5 die each day due to hunger related causes... I will be updating this post at a later date once I find the current UN numbers). If a country has saturated its populations capacity for demand, accepting new immigrants from less flourishing countries is always on the table in order to continue economic growth. The argument that the current population is 'too far gone' intellectually and spiritually that it would be unrealistic to expect any sort of sustained growth given their lack of education/judgments... I would say that the current tools at our disposal, as far as being able to spur markets, and other sociological factors that are relevant to economics are being massively under utilized and that you would have to have an incomplete understanding of what is possible, and what is being done in selective pockets of the world, as well as having a truly unapologetic 'elitist view' that is out of touch with basic socio-cultural-economic developmental factors that are currently at work.

Feedback is encouraged as always, thank you for your time.

The 'Why Go Vegan' Argument

[Note: The video Earthlings http://earthlings.com/?page_id=32 should be seen by everybody interested enough in this topic to read a blog post on it.  Also you need to read my first blog post if you are new to the party.

http://valuesofadevilsadvocate.blogspot.com/2013/07/facts-and-values-1-3a.html ]

There are so many places to start with this kind of post but I suppose the best place is with the Animal Rights core assumption that:

"Sentient beings are not Property"

Its also not Rights in the plural sense either, its not the right to run for office or to own a car or get married or whatever sort of nonsense someone might come up with, its just the right to not be property.  The animal welfarists of the world do not agree with this idea, they believe it is perfectly acceptable for humans to consume animals as long as it is done in a 'humane' way, though there is a legitimate debate going on within animal activist communities as to whether or not it could ever be humane regardless of the sort of treatment.  The philosophical core to the Animal Welfare is:

"Minimize the Suffering and to Maximize the Standard of Living of Animals"

This debate between welfarists and rights advocates is certainly interesting for its own philosophical depths and I will be exploring this at much greater length in a different blog post, but the first thing that needs to be addressed is the third position in terms of how to view animals which is that they are dumb unaware automatons that do not deserve to be apart of the moral community and hence the discussion of which side to fall on should be skipped entirely.  At this point of the post it may be that I have completely lost any of the much larger audience that one would hope these arguments reach instead of simply preaching to the choir, but if you have ever spent any extended amount of time with the typical animals we choose to domesticate such as cats and dogs you would know that there are very real and noticeable personalities, noticeable attachments to their mothers and children, noticeable repulsion to pain stimulants, noticeable desires for treats and toys, almost as if they had their own feelings and thoughts.  

To me I find it very analogous to the time in which people claimed that African Americans were not part of the moral community, and how through their own advocation as well as Whites along with world events, they were eventually considered eligible to not be property.  They then eventually went on through the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr. to gain full equal status which is the step that makes the difference between animals.  The same attributes that we assert as inherently valuable for humans also applies to animals, its the additional attribute of intelligence which asserts the additional rights we subscribe to humans.  

You can disagree with my assertions that their personalities, feelings, desires, attachments, the ability to suffer, the ability to have happiness, etc is the collection of attributes that includes animals into the moral community, but I would be compelled to ask as, what would it take to grant access to the moral community in your eyes?  Intelligence?  That seems very self selective and out of step, as if its from the 'wrong category' to base a persons ethics.  For example if I were to look at a mentally retarded child and say that this child is not intelligent enough to be considered apart of the moral community and the probability that they will ever be intelligent enough to be apart of the moral community is so overwhelmingly against that it would mean that I could treat that child like a piece of cardboard and have it be a morally neutral event, I would say your either lying to try to make a point or that there would be quiet a few people you wouldn't mind treating like cardboard (killing off) as well such as the elderly who have had a regression in their cognitive abilities and have an equally low enough probability of regaining their intelligence.  I would also like to know how you would measure the intelligence level to which it would take to make it in the club, and why would the line be drawn there and not somewhere lower or higher?  If you could assign the arbitrary line of intelligence to the point where it just barely excludes most of the animal kingdom and includes humans and maybe dolphins and apes then I would ask why would that be a better spot than say a line that excludes say 80% (or 99.99%) of the human race including all of the animal kingdom?  No, it seems that using intelligence as a marker for the moral community is an incoherent concept, though I could be wrong and if I am please explain why it would make sense.

To be honest, if you read through my first blog post (like you should have) you would know that I believe that most values and decisions people endorse are rooted much farther in emotions than they are within logic and so it would make sense that most people have an aversion to making the lifestyle shift that they were conditioned into by family and society instead of being in disagreement about the ethics.  If you think about it, food has got to be one of the most culturally influential bonding events that a person goes through, who would want to give up that old familiar feeling of scrambled eggs made just the way mom prepared it every now and then.  Not to mention the constant barrage of advertisements from Taco Bell and KFC or whatever it might be that needs some getting use to if there would be a lifestyle shift in a culture dominated by the idea that animal products is a morally neutral thing. 

Vegan food, when prepared properly is fucking delicious.  There are lots of alternatives to choose from that either mimic the taste or act as suitable alternatives to animal products.  There are thousands and thousands of different plants to choose from and the typical American diet consists of the 3 main suspects: pig, cow, and chicken.  Vegan food is healthier for you, as in it can give you longer lasting and higher levels of energy, higher levels of nutrition and higher levels of fiber which is helpful in weight-loss.  Its better for the planet, as in a vegan that drives a Hummer has a smaller carbon foot print than an omnivore that rides a bike...  Its more efficient as far as energy reserves are concerned since instead of feeding plants to animals to then eat the animals, you skip the step and just eat the plants, oh and by the way, plants do not have brains so there isn't a moral question when consuming a tomato.

I think I've covered most of the talking points but I'm sure I've missed some, if you watch Earthlings and be on the lookout for up and coming blog posts where I go into the Rights vs Welfare debate, as well as my own version of veganism, as well as smaller topics like Pets, you will get a complete version of my thoughts on the topic.  Be brave my non-vegan friends.

The Cultural Fallacy of Independence

[Note:  If you have yet to read my introductory post, go read it, its a prerequisite

http://valuesofadevilsadvocate.blogspot.com/2013/07/facts-and-values-1-3a.html ]

I was having a discussion with an older gentleman the other day in a Starbucks where he made the assertion that nobody gave him anything in life and that he had worked for everything (though he later admitted to me that he was in the military which I find sorta funny).  I immediately was skeptical and told him so but I can see that our conversation wasn't too productive for either of us so I've decided to get my thoughts out in this post to try and show exactly why I believe most claims of individualism or independence is an incoherent concept.  I'm willing to bet that this probably wont convince anyone who currently holds this sort of cultural misconception ( I'm sure those sort of people would never be interested in a rational discussion of values and facts with me regardless), though it might be useful so I shall try.  The idea that you are an individual who is responsible for everything you've accomplished, that everything you are currently capable of doing, that everything currently in your control is all due to the fact that you 'worked hard' to achieve those things, is what I would call a perfect example of where 'Intellectual Honesty' has failed.  

The Toyota you drove (on roads built by the government) to the Shell Gas station to fill up your tank with oil pumped by BP (British Petroleum) and maybe grabbed some Fritos corn chips and a CocoCola soft drink before picking up a cheeseburger at McDonalds to fill you up before that important phone call (on your iPhone) about maybe taking a trip to Target to buy a new Acer Laptop for your son who is getting a degree at Harvard, kinda show that you have many people you depend on regularly.  Specifically referring to the computer or mobile device your using to read this article, do you really think it was worth the 200-1000 dollars you spent on it?  Do you really believe that a textbook that explains in detail the learned knowledge of the past 300 years of electricity that took the hard work, blood (at times), sweat, tears and devotion of generations working together was really only worth the 200-400 dollars you spent on it?  I don't.  I think you are being given a huge gift through the miracle of economics and social cooperation.  When thought about for any reasonable length of time it becomes non-credible that people honestly believe that they can be 'independent' from any outside influences.  

  

If you want to be a real independent person who can truly say that they weren't given anything, then I would suggest for you to throw away your cell phones and computers (do you really believe the $50 a month for internet service is a fair trade?), throw away your Toyota's and air conditioned homes (do you really think the 4,000 to 25,000 dollars you paid for your car is a fair trade of value?) and get rid of any tools and clothing manufactured by our large industrial machinery and go live in the woods.  Start making your own tools out of rocks and bones, start building your own structures out of logs and leaves, start farming your own fruits and vegetables, start trying to figure out how to build your own electronics, start trying to come up with your own solutions to all the horrifying diseases and predators of the wild.  Otherwise perhaps this idea of being independent isn't really about the actual meaning of independence but more used as a means to control and shame others to live the lives that those who employ that tactic think people should be living.

My Devils Advocate now pops up and starts shouting:  

But wait, couldn't this shame tactic be a useful thing for people?  What if people weren't interested in putting in a lot of effort into the amazing things that make up our world?  Wouldn't it be useful to shame people into this incoherent position of always trying to be independent from others, that way through their misguided efforts they end up adding value to the world?

As far as I am concerned, in ideal cases, the truth should always be deferred to, though I do understand that some people aren't reflective types who attempt to maximize their epistemic and instrumental rationality and so there 'could' be an argument to the effect that the efforts put into simply lying to people would maximize the effects while minimizing the investment of time and effort compared to what the alternative strategies would call for, HOWEVER that seems to be the laziest and least instrumental strategy in terms of how to shape the cultural landscape (which is what we are talking about when we start dealing with arguments that advocate lying as a means to an ends) with the implicit goal of wanting a highly motivated and productive population.  In fact, going the lazy route would be contributing to the opposite of those goals once individuals discover the truth when compared to the possible scenarios presented by the alternative strategies / cultures as well as many other problems.  One of the largest problems presented by this lazy strategy is the fact that simple problems that have been solved long ago have to keep being solved over and over again when efforts could be put into solving real problems that haven't been fully tackled, sorta like trying to reinvent the 300 years of 'Science of Electronics' on your own instead of being the good for nothing freeloader and opening a textbook (if that upsets you, its ok, emotions are fine and of course they do have an impact on your willingness to adopt certain values so I would hope that you try and examine why it is that your becoming emotional and if that reaction is something you would've had if you hadn't received the incoherent conditioning in the first place). There is something to be said about building up a skill set in order to have the capability to contribute in a meaningful way, sorta like an athlete that trains all summer long for the upcoming season, but that's not what is happening and any argument made to try and frame the situation to look as if that is what is happening is disgustingly fallacious.  The last analogy to use before its time to move on would be that, there are physical exercises, such as dwarf jacks (which is a modified version of a jumping jack, just in the full squat position) that do nothing for your physical improvement and simply cause pain.  

Agnotology and Doubt in General

[Note: As always, before reading this post, if you are new to the party, my first post is a prerequisite to every other post which can be found at

http://valuesofadevilsadvocate.blogspot.com/2013/07/facts-and-values-1-3a.html ]

We live in a very complicated time right now with no signs of being simplified.  With Information Wars raging it becomes very important to understand certain tactics that are used to try to control the flow of not just information but the way in which that information is interpreted, it is called 'Influence'.  You can be told the truth about something, to have reality staring at you in the face, and yet if you have a certain level of doubt, you can decide not to act when the moment counts.  Propaganda is about the deliberate creation of surface lies, whereas agnotology is the specialized study of doubt which is most notable in the process where seemingly legitimate organizations who look like and claim to be authorities on a given subject use the same procedures as the actual legitimate organizations except with the deliberate manipulation of definitions, assumptions and values that wouldn't ordinarily be the case, with the specific intent to arrive at different conclusions in order to create doubt through the appearance of going through the proper scientific procedures.  An example of this is when, in the 1990's, cigarette companies tried convincing the public that smoking was actually beneficial for your health by funding studies that supported that claim.

This level of deliberate confusion over what might be considered justifiable knowledge is causing an enormous amount of conflict and polarization today.  You could arguably say that, for example, if you accepted the values, definitions and assumptions of Christian Science while rejecting other value sets that did not permit the coherence of religion with the modern understanding about how the universe is structured, that it would be more about group selection instead of it being an instance of the deliberate manipulation of someone's perceptions for nefarious ends.  You have to ask which values, assumptions, and definitions should I go with?  Do you simply defer to the value set the majority of what the Scientific Community has agreed with because they are who they are, or do you go with your own value system and then judge what results you choose to give weight to based off of how well they align?  I know for myself, I find that I disagree quiet often with what people claim usually because of an assumption or decision that turned left instead of right which was made at step two or three of a 50 step argument or explanation...  Does that mean there would be nothing that someone would be able to take from others who hold differing foundations?  Is the fact that certain 'authorities' (who are operating on assumptions, values and definitions that you do not agree with) have already been shaping someone's worldview a sign of how easy it is to fall victim to agnotologic manipulations and that the solution would be to double down on examining foundations to see what the correct values, assumptions, and definitions would be as far as choosing which conclusions and world views to endorse?  Should you even be interested in what the conclusions would be given a certain value, assumption and definition set or should you try picking values, assumptions and definitions based off of their own merit and sticking with whatever result you get?

Would the ONLY way for someone to be confident on something was if they knew all of the values, assumptions, and definitions that went into the foundational levels of any given domain?  People in Academia would immediately say that you do not need to have a complete inside and out understanding of the foundations of mathematics in order to be able to do mathematics, so why wouldn't the same be true about neuroscience, psychology, physics? That's certainly not true for things like physics and (good) philosophy, so why wouldn't it also not be true for psychology and really anything else you may work with, otherwise aren't you going with the story you were given without really understanding what your doing?  If I give you some primitives to work with and then you go off and combine them together in complex ways instead of first learning why those primitives were chosen (or even exist in the first place) and not other primitives to work with, could that be justifiable in any sort of intellectually honest way?

You don't have to be told a lie in order to be manipulated into holding unjustified levels of doubt (or confidence) about something by those who use doubt as their weapon, though being tricked by lies can be the fastest way to skew your perceptions.  It could be that the information that was presented, while being true, is not relevant to the specific focus of whatever judgement or decision you are making while on the surface 'feeling' as though it could plausibly be relevant, or that it could be relevant to the decision but made to 'feel' as if it is more relevant than it really is.  Another common thing is to make an assertion or manipulation and then leave out a piece of relevant information which would have provided the proper nuance which would have significantly changed your level of doubt/confidence in whatever it was.

So how is it that the 'flow of influence' is typically controlled to create unjustified levels of doubt other than by agnotoligic means?  Well, marketing tactics are involved where specific human 'automatic responses' are exploited to either prime an individual with the smallest of nudges or with other strategies (or at other points in larger strategies) that I like to call the 'sledge hammer effect' where you are invaded by a massive amount of emotional/psychological pressure in a very short period of time.  Using the sledge hammer effect is (to my experience) usually reserved for very crucial moments while the nudges are used to prime you before the larger invasion, remember this is about influence over decisions based on information.  So what are the typical 'automatic responses' or other vulnerable areas where humans can easily be guided to one conclusion over the other?  There is a wonderful book that I would recommend to people who are interested in typical marketing tactics which is called 'Influence', it was written by a professionally trained marketer who goes into specific categories of attack but from the self-defense side.  The book mainly focuses on 'Cognitive Biases' that have been evolutionarily ingrained into the human psyche, like the bandwagon effect or the cultural impact that presumed authorities have based solely off of specific cues as opposed to legitimately holding a position.  

As someone who has spent 'some' time deliberately learning about Cognitive Biases and Logical Fallacies, it is apparent that you can learn to recognize and lower 'some' of the effects of influence whenever a Red Herring comes up just by being able to label the category to which the manipulation belongs however it is not necessary to consciously memorize the different labels as long as you know the process by which these errors and manipulations are typically structured, its the way you think that is important.  As far as implementing self defense tactics against those who use doubt as their weapon, I would say that the ability to be aware of what you know to be true and why you know it, as in literally asking yourself what is it that you know that has a high enough certainty to be sure enough to operate with and what does not as in something that has enough doubt to not be certain enough to operate with (its the unfortunate reality with this kind of warfare that if you are to have any shot at developing accurate models of reality, you need to become proficient with this sort of process).  Work on developing a strong and skeptical Devil's Advocate to check everything you assume and operate on, a specific focus on what the true incentives for the players involved is also important, learning to recognize Logical Fallacies and where you yourself hold Cognitive Biases, and most importantly to know when to make a move and when not to make a move.  To be honest, I don't think I have mastered most of what would be needed to fight off these sorts of attacks completely, but I do know some of the tricks they use and wanted to share.  I also know its a thing that, just like everything else, takes practice.  Good luck.